Lou has provided me with a lot of info on his old projects. I have subbed some, myself.

I would recommend that you provide screens of the emails. Lou is a helpful dude.

Well, I could do that. Since you have been in contact with Lou, you should know about Wintersong and Dominion, right? If a mod asks me for screens of e-mails I can send it to them in an e-mail. Don't want to post it here in the forum.

EDIT: Wow! Lou is REALLY nice and fast to reply! He took pictures of the Wintersong and Dominion demos (he has them on CD while I thought that he had them on cassette). It would be nice to get wav or FLAC files from him. Both demos that I received were in a lossy format, the Dominion only being MP3 @ 160 kbps. But it still sounds good, so I'll not complain...

I have uploaded the photos that Lou Calderola sent to me to my Imageshack account:

I was getting some other tapes from Paul of Velnias, and he threw in that as an extra. I don't know if it was ever sold through any distros or labels. I guess I could have worded that phrase better. I don't know how widely they were distributed.

Sorry for causing you trouble, but you don't have to talk in an attacking tone, as in the email. Thanks for the information of the silly limitation. I only have a doubt, what number of copies would be enough for you to consider it as a valid release?

Use your own judgement on that and ask yourself what makes an album publicly available and spread in reasonable quantities in any realistic sense. Any specific number would be arbitrary, but a single-digit limitation is definitely not enough.

I was getting some other tapes from Paul of Velnias, and he threw in that as an extra. I don't know if it was ever sold through any distros or labels. I guess I could have worded that phrase better. I don't know how widely they were distributed.

Yeah, we need to know if it was ever really distributed and how. I guess if it is only being included as a bonus with orders, it depends on how regular and numerous those inclusions are. More details needed either way.

Thanks a lot for the info so I make sure to not commit the same mistake again. I also have a suggestion. In rules and guidelines> bands and albums. Text: And remember that a clear-cut proof of a physical release is always the best ticket for acceptance (unless it's 3 little tapes you obviously made for your mother, your brother and your friend... and yes, we've had this kind of submission!).

You could change that for: Unless its a release limited to one digit number of copies.

I had in mind that 9 could be enough, as there are many that have 10, or 11 copies only. The purpose of the suggestion would be only for avoiding someone submitting something without knowing the exact limitation. Thanks a lot Azmodes and I'm not here to cause trouble just to provide the few information that's in my hands. Cheers.

I wanted to ask you to reconsider the deletion of the funeral drone doom metal band Qhwertt. I understand that the band is a complete metal band, where guitars are the main instrument, despite of having heavy keyboard brushstrokes. As a user reported this band as non-metal, I suggest you to listen both albums of Qhwertt. Also, you can read an interview in doomantia.com http://www.doommantia.com/search/label/Qhwertt. Also, the band is listed in doom-metal.com. Both albums were edited by Furias Records with good response of many metal distributors.Thanks in advance.www.orionmusicfurias.com.ar/qhwertt

I was getting some other tapes from Paul of Velnias, and he threw in that as an extra. I don't know if it was ever sold through any distros or labels. I guess I could have worded that phrase better. I don't know how widely they were distributed.

Yeah, we need to know if it was ever really distributed and how. I guess if it is only being included as a bonus with orders, it depends on how regular and numerous those inclusions are. More details needed either way.

Yeah, I don't really have those details, so I'll just wait for the band to release more stuff and gain more of a presence. Thanks!

I heard BTBAM used to be on this site but then suddenly got blacklisted. But why them? I know they first began as a progressive metalcore band and they had a lot of elements from hardcore punk. But ever since they released Colors, they ABANDONED that sound and are now a progressive metal band with some influences from like jazz, progressive rock, metal, death metal, and others. They don't have any breakdowns, or anything like that anymore. That was their old stuff. If Faith No More are on this site then how are they more metal? They are so experimental that they play even other genres like funk and stuff. Also, FNM even are rap metal which is a rejected genre. But if BTBAM play progressive metal, they should be on this site. Try looking at their newer stuff and it sounds undeniably like very complex, progressive metal with some keyboards, jazz influences and stuff. It basically follows the modern prog metal train. If Xerath are here, then BTBAM should, too.

But allowing the listing of side projects of band members (regardless of who it is and what they did) that are non-metal is the most ridiculous thing I have heard for an archived list/inventory of METAL bands. This isn't the side-project archives. No one really cares about how many bands are listed on the site.

The categorizing has gone to hell and very lax since I joined this site back in 2005. Bands like Soulfly and Ministry would have never been allowed to be listed back then. Time for me to move on.

The categorizing has gone to hell and very lax since I joined this site back in 2005.

That's a rather hasty conclusion you've jumped to, and a terribly erroneous one.

Granted, the side-project rule has arguably been the stem of more confusion than anything else on this site (half the blacklist is filled with ambient/martial industrial/drone/neofolk. etc). When the rule was first introduced, it aimed to include projects that were most relevant to the metal scene... such as Karl Sanders' Egyptian folk/ambient project, which is pretty much comprised of material that didn't fit in his main band, Nile. There was no hard and fast criteria for what christened a band as "noteworthy enough", though the rules of thumb were that it had to be founded by an esteemed/famous metal musician of global renown (or something close enough), and typically in tandem with their metallic career. For instance, Storm Corrosion was founded by Mikael Åkerfeldt in tandem with Opeth. The other rule of thumb was that the project should ideally have worldwide distribution on a major record label (although this is a guideline that people have misinterpreted as a black-and-white rule over time...)

Quote:

Bands like Soulfly and Ministry would have never been allowed to be listed back then.

Uhm. Bands like Soulfly and Ministry weren't accepted based on anything less than an undeniably and irrefutably metallic release. I'm not familiar with Ministry, but I can tell you it took something as metal as this to get Soulfly off the blacklist. They weren't accepted based on anything prior to that.

Morkner wrote:

Trinity: it was rejected because you guys categorise it under Atmospheric Black Ambient/Drone, it can still be added can't it?

Seriously cobber, what IS it with you trying to get blatantly non-metal stuff into the site?

Morkner wrote:

Black Ambient: Mixture of Black Metal and Dark Ambient

... no. Black ambient can refer to dark ambient with blackened elements/aesthetics, or it can refer to "black noise" (e.g., fucked-up guitar ambience and/or BM vocals). Just because a musical genre is influenced by a metal one, it doesn't make it metal.

Morkner wrote:

Drone Music: Form of minimalistic music which can easily be subcategorised as a form of Ambience or Metal

Yeah, we know what drone is, dude... There's a huge difference between drone ambient and drone doom. Drone doom is consisted of long, heavy, sustained guitar riffs that still adhere to a song structure... contrast with drone ambient, where a guitar could still be used to provide backing ambience without supplying any real riffs whatsoever.

... metal isn't defined by drumming. It's defined by guitars. Specifically, guitar riffs. You could say that's the site's own definition of the genre, but quite frankly, I think it's a view that's largely widespread. You can't put blastbeats to a rap track and expect it to magically become metal.

Just out of curiousity, why aren't Between the Buried and Me on the archives? it really is only curiousity because I can't stand that band and am not trying to get them back but it seems a lot of bands who are similar enough are on it plus I would classify them as metal personally.